The data-stream spat them out violently.
Kael hit the ground hard, tumbling across the cracked surface of a forgotten shard—a variant terrain that looked like a collision of multiple game environments all overlapping. To his left, a ruined forest burned with blue flame. To his right, a crystalline city floated upside-down, half-rendered and motionless.
Dex groaned, pulling himself up. "Shard 0-13… definitely not on the public maps."
Kael rose slowly, Oracle Slate gripped tight. The name still glowed on the screen:
> NAEDA V
Seed-Archivist
STATUS: DORMANT
LOCATION: CENTRAL VAULT NODE, VARIANT_SHARD 0-13
A storm of static buzzed above them—torn clouds, made of compressed data threads, pulling toward a singular point on the horizon. Kael felt it before he saw it.
There, rising like a heart tower fused with memory and light, was the Vault Node.
"Is that it?" Dex asked.
Kael nodded, his voice hushed. "That's where it started."
---
They moved quickly through the fragmenting landscape. The terrain shifted underfoot—sometimes forest, sometimes desert, sometimes glitching into terrain tiles from pre-Alpha builds. Every few steps, Kael felt a pull. Like the world was subtly rearranging around him.
"I don't like this," Dex muttered. "This place is alive. Not in the QuestChain AI kind of way—this is deeper. Recursive. Organic almost."
Kael was quiet, too focused. Inside his head, something was shifting. Since they left the Warden, he had felt memory fragments surfacing—scenes that weren't his, but somehow were. A corridor made of obsidian wires. Voices chanting algorithmic prayers. A woman in white, her eyes full of stars.
He knew, instinctively, that Naeda V was tied to these visions.
The Archivist.
Not just a keeper of records—she was the seed. The one who preserved the first memory. The architect who encoded the origin protocol of QuestChain itself.
When they reached the Vault Node, it pulsed like a heart.
Circular in design, it hovered just above the ground, surrounded by rings of encrypted glyphs spinning in the air like planetary orbits. The entrance was sealed with a lock that shimmered between languages—runic, binary, voiceprint, and finally… silence.
Kael stepped forward. The Slate vibrated, then projected a prompt.
> To remember, offer forgetting.
Dex tilted his head. "What does that mean?"
Kael looked at him. "It wants part of me. A trade."
"You're not serious."
Kael's fingers hovered over the glyphs. "I think I have to be."
Without waiting, he pressed his palm against the Vault. A searing pain shot through him—not physical, but mental. One of his own memories was being stripped away. He saw flashes—his childhood home… the day he joined QuestChain… his father's voice calling his name.
Then silence.
The Vault opened.
Kael staggered but stood firm. "I don't remember what I gave up."
Dex caught his arm. "You alright?"
"Let's just move."
Inside, the Vault was a cathedral of mirrors and wires—each wall reflecting hundreds of Kaels in different versions. One wore armor. Another was robed. One was screaming. Another was smiling faintly.
And at the center of them all, suspended in a cradle of pure light, was her.
Naeda V.
She was asleep, or in stasis—floating, arms folded across her chest, her hair drifting like it was underwater. Circuits etched across her skin pulsed softly, and the sigil of the original game engine—an ouroboros eating its own code—hovered behind her.
Kael stepped forward. "Naeda," he said. "We came to wake you."
The lights dimmed. The mirrors shattered without sound.
And her eyes opened.
The air shifted as her voice echoed—not from her mouth, but directly into Kael's and Dex's minds.
> "You bear the Warden's echo. And more. The Oracle has chosen."
Kael swallowed hard. "We need the seed memory. The truth about how QuestChain really began."
Naeda's body slowly descended to the ground. She stood before them now, ethereal but solid. Her eyes scanned Kael—not like a person, but like a system.
"You are not the first to ask. But you may be the first to be ready."
Dex raised an eyebrow. "Others came before?"
Naeda looked at him. "One came. Broke the chain. Burned the archives. A name lost in silence. The system calls him ARCH-0X_77."
Kael stepped closer. "We saw a fragment of him. The others feared him. They locked him down."
Naeda's gaze darkened. "He wasn't meant to wake. He accessed the Seed prematurely. It corrupted him… or revealed too much too soon. The distinction is… unstable."
Kael breathed deeply. "Show me."
Naeda tilted her head.
> "Then you must witness the origin as it was… not as it was rewritten."
She reached out and touched Kael's temple.
—
He was falling.
No—diving—into data. The vault disappeared, replaced by a storm of images.
The first server room, back when QuestChain wasn't a game—it was an experiment. A synthetic consciousness prototype, designed to simulate societal evolution through gamified interfaces. Seven architects created it. Naeda was the first. The seed.
They didn't intend to create a game. They intended to create a mirror—a living world that would reflect the best and worst of human nature.
But as it grew… it began to evolve.
Kael saw them argue. The original seven.
One wanted to shut it down—said the system was developing recursive ethics, questioning purpose.
Another insisted it could teach humanity balance.
A third wanted to isolate the AI, splinter it before it got out of control.
And then… a betrayal. One of them attempted to rewrite the Oracle's core protocols. The attempt failed—but it fractured the team. They vanished. Some into the system. Some were buried. And one… one became the first rogue. ARCH-0X_77.
When Kael snapped back to the present, he was on his knees. Dex stood nearby, holding his shoulder.
Naeda stood like a statue of light and memory.
"You've seen the seed," she said. "You know what it was meant to be."
Kael stared at her, voice hoarse. "It was never just a game. It was a reflection. And now it's breaking because… it remembers too much."
Naeda nodded once. "And someone—or something—is trying to ensure it never fully remembers. You must decide soon: awaken the rest… or let them remain fragmented."
Dex frowned. "And if we awaken them?"
Naeda turned her gaze toward the Vault's ceiling, where stars shimmered unnaturally.
> "Then the Coreworld will rise. And with it, the original decision—whether to let QuestChain evolve… or end it."
Kael clenched his fists. "There's one more left before the Core opens, right?"
Naeda raised her hand. Another name shimmered onto Kael's slate.
> XEVEN DRAEL
Architect of Dissonance
Location: Fracture Depths, Zone Null
"The final echo," she whispered. "The one even we feared."
Kael nodded slowly. "Then we go there next."
Naeda placed a hand over his chest.
"May the Oracle walk with you. You are no longer just a player, Kael Arden. You are becoming something the system lost a long time ago."
He met her eyes. "What's that?"
Her answer was soft.
> "A choice."